


Passing Through and Through

by Brighid



Category: Firefly
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Post-Serenity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 08:58:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5702617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brighid/pseuds/Brighid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Home is where the heart ... lingers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Passing Through and Through

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VictoriaP](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictoriaP/gifts).



> I love River and Mal. I just do.

)0(

River is learning the way of things.

Like, you don't watch your brother slide downward over Kaylee's body. That you don't touch his red cheek and tell him you know, anyways.

Or that Zoe forgives you, even if she doesn't want to, because there are still things that are Right and Necessary, even if they kill you bit-by-bit, piece-by-piece.

She lets Inara tame her hair, some days, braid it into serpentine submission, charm it with bottles and pots of sweet smelling things. She lets Inara paint her feet and hands with henna, spirals and swirls like all the galaxies hiding underneath her skin, waiting for a split, a shift, a possibility.

She learns you can't just wear the little galaxies out, because it makes Jayne blush, makes his mind stutter and stop and just thrum: Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! before running away, lest the Captain thinks he's done harm.

She likes some things she learns. Her very favourite new thing is learning how to dance with Serenity: through clouds, between asteroids, diving into wells of hidden gravity. Serenity still talks to her like always, though not like she talks to Kaylee, not of practical things. To River she's all possibility and parable. Stories and songs and snatches of dreams that neither of them completely understand, but still ... so very beautiful. 

Serenity tells her about them, days before River sees them herself.

She sees Wash first, in his chair, touching the dinosaurs that no one's had the heart to move. He smiles sweetly at her, sideways out of the Captain's head, and his chest is a red blossom of despair.

Shepherd she finds in the kitchen, his scriptures open in front of him, whispering prayers. A fine crimson mist covers the thin, onionskin paper. He looks up as she passes, asks: "How are you keeping, Child?" and she tells him very well. She asks him, "Have you seen Wash?" and he shakes his head, then fades away.

Two weeks in she thinks, maybe she should tell someone, because while Shepherd seems comfortable enough with his book and his wanderings, Wash seems sad. But she can't tell Zoe, who is still all knots and wires inside. Inara might understand, but she'd most likely understand wrong. Simon would be sad, his happiness cracking like the ice over the koi pond that one winter. Kaylee is too earthy, Jayne is too salty.

She wanders half the night one night before climbing down into Mal's quarters, sitting on the edge of his bed.

He's awake, though only just. "What's the matter, mei-mei?"

"I'm not your sister." River says, touching his breastbone. His heart hiccups gently under her hand. 

He grabs her hand, holds it still. "Be that as it may, darlin', since you're creeping into my bunk in the middle of the night, best I think of you that way, dong ma?"

"You shouldn't sleep naked. That's how you get caught," River says. "And Shepherd might see you."

"Shen me?" he says, blinking at her. 

"Shepherd and Wash are here, the bits that slipped free. They wanted to come home for a little while," she explains. "Serenity said it was fine."

"She would," Mal sighs, sitting up, the blankets pooling around his hips. River leans a little, sees the line of his back, the tops of his buttocks, reaches out and touches a silvery scar, like a snake, along the sharpness of his hipbone. He doesn't catch her hand again, just looks at her.

"You told anyone else?" he asks finally, twisting under the sheets so that the serpent slides away. It doesn't matter, she still knows it's there. She shakes her head, and he lets out a soft, plosive breath. "Then don't. Zoe ain't ready."

"Wash is sad," River says. 

"Because Zoe ain't ready," Mal repeats. "Wash'll just have to be patient." 

River sighs. "He's not good at that, though he pretends." She curls up closer to Mal, lays her head against his chest to hear his heartbeat, to hear the hissing beneath his skin. His arms drop down around her, brotherly and not, his fingers dancing with Serenity's song on her bare arm.

"Why'd you tell me?" he says into her hair, but he already knows the answer.

If anyone on Serenity understands about ghosts, it's her Captain. So she doesn't answer, just curls in tightly and falls asleep and dreams.

)0(


End file.
